As noted in the first two parts of this series, there is a lot of work involved in the environmental scan and reviewing the mission. In this segment, we discuss the role of the strategic planning work group and how to recruit high performing people to volunteer for it.

Culture develops organically, and it can be based on power, personality and politics if you aren’t paying attention to the culture you are building.

This episode focuses on building a culture that supports and nurtures the people in your organization. We speak with McKenzie Wren, the Chief Engagement Officer of Wren Consulting. She helps organizations build and manage teams by creating a culture on purpose. Today, McKenzie explains the importance of building a culture of understanding, mutualism, and positive energy. Specifically, she:

*****Timestamped Highlights*****
(3:02) McKenzie defines a “culture on purpose”
(5:32) Authentic inclusion: an attempt to make an environment for yourself and organization
(6:15) A primer: the difference between diversity and inclusion
(9:28) Why culture on purpose is important for teams
(12:20) Discussing positions: McKenzie’s tactic for building culture
(14:00) Creating a culture on purpose while minding HR rules
(17:48)- Finding Professional Development: handling disciplinary issues
(19:18) Collaboration: a tool for inclusion
(21:00) Check-ins and agendas: tools for inclusion
(24:01) McKenzie explains Theory U and the PresencingYou
(26:01) Rules of Engagement: agreements of how to talk and listen to one another for a better culture
(30:00) McKenzie shares tips for remaining calm and centered during the Trump Presidency

Nothing kills enthusiasm like long, disorganized, unproductive meetings, and this goes for all meetings. Whether a board meeting, staff meeting or one-on-ones, we must make sure that all of our interfaces are productive and worth our time.

Learn how a commitment to attendance, communication, shared agendas, inclusion, participation, and more will make your nonprofit's meetings more productive.

A strong relationship between the executive director and development director is vital to successful fundraising. In fact, these two staff must share mutual trust, open communication, and patience to achieve a charity’s fundraising goals.

We know the toll for a weak CEO-CDO relationship is significant:

Frequent fundraiser turnover

Frustrated donors

Failure to meet fundraising goals

Fumbled board fundraising

Every nonprofit professional agrees that a healthy CEO-CDO relationship enhances fundraising, but many non-profits suffer from a messy relationship between these key executives. For this reason, Emma Kieran, principal of PilotPeak consulting in Pittsburg, joins us to discuss ways a Chief Development Officer (CDO) and CEO can build a strong relationship.

*****Time Stamped Highlights*****
(3:00) Lack of synergy: the number one reason fundraisers, CDOs, and CEOs leave
(6:11) How and why turnovers affect your annual campaign and special events
(7:15) Knowing the different roles for your CDOs and CEOs
(8:20) How a CEO can build a strong relationship with the CDO
(9:00) Developing expectations and being patient
(9:53) Open, regular communication: the CDO’s main priority in building a better relationship with the CEO
(14:46) “Meeting summary”: a tool for reinforcing mutual accountability between the CDOs and CEOs
(15:50) Work plan: another tool for CDOs and CEOs to use
(18:53) The CEOs role in board fundraising efforts
(20:20) The CDOs role in board fundraising efforts
(21:42) Celebrating success and professional development
(23:31) Prioritizing creative space for CDOs
(25:40)- Spending money to make money: paying for the value of your CDO
(27:45) “Ironman”: Emma shares her favorite and least favorite part of a triathlon.
(31:40) Emma shares the inspiration behind the name “PilotPeak”

If you don’t believe checklists work, ask an airline pilot. Even the most tenured pilot has a checklist with detailed steps to start the engine, taxi, and take-off. And when the plane lands, they have a different set of checklists to get passengers safely to the terminal.

In fact, checklists are one of the reasons why air travel is among the safest forms of transportation. Assuming you believe that your organization’s mission is important and provides essential programs or services, shouldn’t you use an annual checklist?

Let me reintroduce the bonus break to you: Imagine taking a short 5- or 10-minute coffee break and getting the added bonus of making you and your nonprofit more successful. Produced as a companion to our longer Successful Nonprofits Podcast, the Bonus Break covers all of the topics you care most about: professional development, fundraising, governance, board relations, marketing, tech, and more.

Almost 20 years ago, I was chief fundraising officer for a Catholic charity that always closed the week between Christmas and New Years. As the director of resource development, however, I worked every day between December 26 and December 31 to capture those last minute donations. Consequently, we typically processed stock donations, vehicle donations, and major gifts that might have otherwise gone to other community based non-profit organizations. During my successful tenures as the development director at two different organizations, I learned the 5 things every fundraiser should do the last week of the year:

#1: Remind board members of their annual financial and fundraising commitments

Sometimes, we are so focused on the mission that we forget to build our organization’s sense of team, communication, and empathy. Consequently, it’s not surprising that so many of us burn out multiple times in a nonprofit career.

To help us focus on empathetic leadership, we invite Carrie Rice, a nonprofit consultant based in San Francisco. Carrie specializes in using empathic techniques to build individual donor programs, board effectiveness and staff leadership training.

We explore empathic practices to improve relationships among staff, stakeholders, and the community you serve.

*****Time Stamped Highlights*****
(2:30) The importance of empathy
(6:18) How your board members can assess their “asking styles”
(7:41) Carrie explains her experience with and the benefits from using a “mission controller”
(9:41) Easy steps to successful empathic practices for staff and board leaders
(11:53) Using empathy when designing websites and donor pages
(13:12) Pro or Con: Logins for donation pages and special event ticket sales
(13:51) Monthly Retention Program: an empathic solution to keeping donors
(15:27) Making your donors feel as important as your mission
(17:50) Weekly staff meeting: The most familiar way to build empathy internally
(19:30) The easiest way to use empathic practices for staff teams and structures
(20:00) Building empathy between supervisors and employees
(22:16) Increasing empathy be creating “technological wellness”
(25:01) Trickle-down Effect: Creating transparency between the executive director and development director that will spread empathy throughout
(27:00) Carrie shares her “Campsite Rule”Listen oniTunesAndroidStitcherLibsyn

About Successful Nonprofits Podcast Host Dolph Goldenburg
Dolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.

Most of us dream of taking extended breaks or sabbaticals to balance work and personal life. While charities rarely offer sabbaticals to every staff member, sabbaticals for all might build the vim and vigor your staff and organization need.

We talk to Marvin Webb, Director of Finance and Administration at Funders for LGBTQ Issues in New York City. Marvin shares:

How his organization came to offer sabbaticals for all staff

How Funders for LGBTQ Issues structures sabbaticals

How he used his sabbatical

As a bonus, Marvin also shares with us how to optimize strategic planning.

*****Time Stamped Highlights*****
(1:45) How Funders for LGBTQ came to offer sabbaticals for all staff members
(5:30) The frequency and conditions of using sabbaticals
(9:55) Why you must “champion” a good idea to get it approved
(11:20) How staff inclusion in sabbaticals and strategic planning improves your team’s ethic
(13:45) Remodeling: Marvin shares what he did on his sabbatical
(15:45) The Jersey Shore: Marvin shares where he went on his sabbatical
(17:00) Going with the Flow: the attitude you should embrace on your sabbatical
(20:15) Returning to work when the sabbatical ends
(22:15) How to keep in contact with your job while on sabbatical
(23:45) How sabbaticals enhance and support succession planning
(25:00) Marvin’s side gig: consulting nonprofits and startups on how to organize their offices
(28:15) How Marvin compartmentalizes his side gigs and jobs.
(30:15) Complications your nonprofit may have with executing verbal commitments and strategic planning
(32:15) Long-term goal and budget: determinants you should consider for your strategic plan
(34:45) Marvin shares his life as a “power commuter”

About Successful Nonprofits Podcast Host Dolph Goldenburg
Dolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.

Change is hard. Change makes us uncomfortable. Change can feel like a loss of what we once knew.

But we also know that change is essential for a board and an organization to reach its full potential. As Maya Angelou once said, “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

We invited Meredith Emmett and Heather Yandow to offer insights from their recent Board Leadership Forum presentation. These two leaders from Third Space Studio share how to create an environment that nurtures new idea, and our conversation included suggestions on monitoring the “heat” of discussion, getting to know your board’s culture, establishing trust, and easing decision-making.

*****Time Stamped Highlights*****
(4:55) How you can help your board prepare for change
(5:45) “Holding environment”: The safe space your board needs to facilitate change
(8:00) Observing body language to see if your board is engaged
(9:00) Meredith gives an example of how disengagement and defensiveness resulted from a conversation that got “too hot”
(10:45) Knowing your board’s culture before you propose change
(14:46) Effective facilitation tools for small-group discussions
(18:00) Modifying your board’s meeting place to fit your board’s understanding of its purpose
(20:45) Discussing the nuts and bolts of a good meeting
(24:24) Whether to have alcohol and food at meetings
(24:59) Why and how to build trust amongst board members
(25:22) The pros and cons of having virtual meetings
(30:09) Tailoring your board’s decision making process
(38:00) Meredith and Heather share the big idea they will incorporate into their workListen oniTunesAndroidStitcherLibsyn

About Successful Nonprofits Podcast Host Dolph GoldenburgDolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.

Word selection is important when conveying your message. We have to make sure that our tone and word choice has an impact that reflects our missions.

To help us, we invite Erica Mills, Senior Lecturer at the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, Author of Pitchfalls: Why Bad Pitches Happen to Good People, and founder of Claxon. Erica will share important insights about words, language, and building messages that resonate with your audience.

*****Time Stamped Highlights*****
(4:00) Erica: Word Nerd?
(6:00) Understanding that words are renewable resources (but make sure you do not wear them out)
(7:30) Fleshckin Aid: How to use understandable but interesting words (Don’t just write sentences and paragraphs, architect them. Become a builder of your message).
(8:30) Your mission statement communicates the change you want to make in the to the world
(11:42) Reading Ease: The proofing tool you need for architecting your language
(16:00) Erica’s exercise of converting memos to tweets
(18:00) Learning from Erica’s work at Evan’s School of Public Policy and Governance as Senior Lecturer and Co-Director
(21:53) Exploring programs, staff, services, and cohorts offered at Evan’s School of Public Policy and Governance
(23:54) The benefits of an MPA
(25:15) Balancing technological communication with face-to-face communication
(26:30) Erica and Dolph explore “Wordifier”, a cool tool to know whether your words are overused.
(33:00) Erica and Dolph discuss the seminal book Elements of Style by Strunk and White.Listen oniTunesAndroidStitcherLibsyn

About Successful Nonprofits Podcast Host Dolph GoldenburgDolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.

About Successful Nonprofits Podcast Host Dolph GoldenburgDolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.

Board builder Rob Acton joins us to discuss specific strategies and tactics to optimize your board. He offers actionable tactics that you can implement today. Acton, founder of Cause Strategy Partners, discusses the three categories of tactics:

Making better use of board meetings

Treating board members as individuals not “the board”

Reshaping board culture

Links:
Cause Strategy Partners: http://causestrategypartners.com/
Twitter: @RobertActon
Twitter: @causestrategy*****Time Stamped Highlights*****
(10:00) Designing board meetings that are not snooze fests
(11:30) An alternative to simply reading the Executive Director’s report
(13:30) The “Plus, Delta, Question” exercise every executive director can use with their board
(17:00) The power of generative questions
(21:40) Building the strategic dashboard your board needs
(28:00) Uncovering the unique strengths of board candidates
(33:15) Rob’s advice for nonprofit board candidates to consider
(35:45) The amount of time a board candidate should expect to volunteer each month.Listen oniTunesAndroidStitcherLibsyn

About Successful Nonprofits Podcast Host Dolph GoldenburgDolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.

*****Time Stamped Highlights*****
(4:00) Why most board meetings are not engaging
(5:30) How your board can better compose and use “report outs”
(7:00) The importance of food to encourage attendance
(8:00) Thinking of a meeting as a theatre performance
(9:00) Why the pre- and post- meeting conversations are models for strategic discussion
(11:40) Before, during, and after: How to make the most of your board meetings
(12:15) Alice Cochran’s advice on “rotating responsibilities”
(14:36) Your board members need to stop asking “what” and start asking “why”
(16:00) Breaking the myth of only having one minute taker for meeting minutes
(17:30) Making your board members comfortable assuming multiple roles
(19:50) Beginning your meetings with mission moments
(21:05) Having each member come to meetings with prepared, strategic questions
(24:00) Keeping your board structures simple
(28:00) The true role of the Governance Committee
(31:40) Emily and Dolph share the importance of a “spousal club”
(32:45) Emily and Dolph discuss three things to do in one-on-one meetingsAs promised, here is a photo of the great ballroom we were recording in:

About Successful Nonprofits Podcast Host Dolph GoldenburgDolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.

*****Time Stamp Highlights*****
(3:10) Surprising survey results on board chair training methods
(5:00) Snowball technique for collecting data
(6:30) The role of board mentors
(9:00) The CEO and board chair relationship
(11:00) The role of a vice chair
(14:00) Accountability and power sharing
(15:05) Finding the power-sharing model that best suits your board
(15:45) Road blocks to smooth leadership transitions
(18:00) Governance’s role in power-sharing
(19:00) How your board leaders can begin to share power with constituents
(19:57) The story of “Sweet Briar”: Justifying the need for power sharing between a board and its community
(23:18) Obstacles to sharing resources with the community
(24:56) Why your board leaders need a mentor to facilitate their training

About Successful Nonprofits Podcast Host Dolph GoldenburgDolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.

Nonprofits all over the country are in the middle of a very busy special event season. In fact, many fundraisers and event planners are putting those final touches on their October and November events, and this is the perfect time to prepare your board to be enthusiastic ambassadors and fundraisers at the event.

To help make your board members effective ambassadors and fundraisers at your next event, we invited special event guru and auctioneer Abra Annes back on the podcast. She shared several fresh and innovative ideas for board involvement that will be fun for your board members, while also generating significantly more revenue for your organization.

About Successful Nonprofits Podcast Host Dolph GoldenburgDolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.

The nonprofit sector is risky business. There are unique laws that apply just to us; we have our own sections of the tax code; and we also must follow employment law, building codes, licensing requirements, and more.

Of course, the press loves to go after charities gone wild and personal injury attorneys salivate at the thought of chasing an organization’s assets on the balance sheet.

This is why we asked Justine Cowan to chat with us today about mitigating and insuring against the risk that we face as nonprofit organizations, as board members, and as staff members.

Our conversation included (Time Stamps):

(6:34) How to structure your nonprofit to mitigate risk

(8:00) The importance of annual state and Federal filings

(10:10) The single greatest area of liability and risk for most organizations

(11:52) The importance of training managers to manage

(14:25) The role of mitigating risk with insurance

(17:35) Mitigating risk when working with volunteers

(19:58) The confusion about overtime rules for employees, as well as failure to classify contractors as employees.

(26:14) Reasons the IRS revokes an organization’s tax-exempt status

(30:00) Ensuring you have a strong conflict of interest policy

(34:21) Indemnification of board members as an added protection for your leadership volunteers

(37:29) The possibility of disputes arising around contracts (and lack of contracts)

About Successful Nonprofits Podcast Host Dolph GoldenburgDolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.

We invited Dahna Godlstein on the podcast after reading her blog post Don’t Do It: Don’t start a nonprofit. After reading her thought provoking blog post, we did a bit of research.

With just a few clicks of the google machine, we learned that she is a thought leader in both the nonprofit and tech sectors. As founder and former CEO of PhilanTech, a board member with justgive.org, adjunct faculty at Georgetown, and a Fellow at the New American think tank, she offered a unique perspective on many aspects of the nonprofit sector.

Our conversation included (timestamps):

(2:40) The story behind PhilanTrack

(6:20) The importance of sabbaticals

(9:00) Why you shouldn’t start a nonprofit

(14:53) How to respond if an organization isn’t meeting the community’s need (without starting another nonprofit)

(17:30) Why you should consider starting a for-profit company instead of a nonprofit organization

(20:15) How to tell if your organization is among the walking dead

(24:20) The tech issues that nonprofit executives and board memberships should be thinking about (it’s not what you think)

(26:35) An example of a good use of technology to intervene with people in crisis

(29:00) How to garner financial support for your organization’s technology

About Successful Nonprofits Podcast Host Dolph GoldenburgDolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.

This episode offers a featured conversation with Dr. Jeff Thompson, a pediatrician, author, sought-after speaker, and CEO Emeritus of Gundersen Health System in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Dr. Thompson is author of the recently published book Lead True and his perspective shines throughout the book: when others are afraid of the risk, the timing, or the possible failure, true leaders step forward to meet a need.

As most listeners know, healthcare systems often represent the largest, most complex nonprofit organizations – perhaps second only to colleges and universities.

During his successful CEO tenure at Gundersen, Dr. Thompson not only improved health outcomes but also used hospital resources to serve as a catalyst for rebuilding the surrounding community, helped patients die with dignity (even though it wasn’t in the organization’s financial best interest), and become a green organization while dramatically curtailing the rising cost of providing healthcare.

And he did all this while protecting the financial well-being of hospital employees, patients, and the community. True to his ethos, Dr. Thompson is donating his proceeds from this book to the Gundersen Foundation Leadership Development Fund!

About Successful Nonprofits Podcast Host Dolph GoldenburgDolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.

We’ve all encountered a schmuck at work, and I’d be willing to bet that we’ve all been the schmuck at least once or twice in our lives. Nonprofits can be messy workplaces with people like Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep’s character from The Devil Wears Prada).

Of course, in the nonprofit sector, the schmuck might not be a staff member. The schmuck can also be a board member, a key volunteer, or an organizational partner. And a schmuck in any of these roles can dramatically derail your organization’s ability to meet its mission and suck the fun out of your relationship with the organizastion.

In today’s episode, we’ll talk with psychiatrists Dr. Jody Foster and Dr. Michelle Joy about their new book “The Schmuck In My Office: How to deal effectively with difficult people at work”.

During this episode, you’ll gain insight and ideas for dealing with the schmuck at your nonprofit.

About Successful Nonprofits Podcast Host Dolph GoldenburgDolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.

Each time I tell a nonprofit that every board member should fundraise, a well-meaning person will say,

“But Dolph, we have two former clients on the board, and they don’t know anyone with deep pockets who can give. We need them on the board because of the important perspective they offer, and one of our government funders even requires their board membership”.

I always look this well-meaning board member in the eye and say the the following. . . . (you'll have to listen to find out).

At some point during its life cycle, every nonprofit has a need for legal counsel. Often times this occurs when the organization is about to sign its first lease – and realizes that an attorney should review the document. Other times, they may be contacted by an attorney representing a disgruntled client, employee, partner, or in some bizarre cases just people walking in front of their building who tripped.

Since every organization needs to speak with an attorney at some point, I asked Rachel Spears to join us on the show today. She is the Executive Director of Pro Bono Partnership Atlanta, which connects volunteer attorneys with Georgia nonprofits in need of pro bono legal services.

As part of our conversation, we discussed:

The dangers of relying on your board attorney member for advice on all your legal matters

It took me almost 20 years in the nonprofit sector to realize there are four predictors of board performance. If I can see just these four data points, I can predict the board’s overall performance with relative accuracy.

When the realization hit me, it seemed as simple and obvious as the law of gravity. If you release a ball in the air, it will drop to the ground. If your board doesn’t perform well in these predictors of board performance, they will also fall.

Listen to this Bonus Break to learn the four predictors of board performance and determine who well your board is performing!

After the hit featured conversation with Ellen Bristol about her book The Leaky Bucket on Episode 20 of the Successful Nonprofits Podcast, I knew we would have her on to discuss her next book: Fundraising the SMART WayTM. In this book she brings the principles of Total Quality Management to identification, qualification, cultivation, and solicitation of donors.

Some of the highlights from our conversation include:

Why you should think about your time being worth $1,000 - $3,000 per hour

Dolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.

Today’s episode explores a unique path that one nonprofit took to transition from steady, incremental growth to a dramatic program expansion and impact. : buying a for profit company.

We spoke with David Shaffer, CEO of First Step Staffing. In 2015, First Step Staffing was a $2 million nonprofit organization providing employment opportunities for low-income, hard to employ people (including those who are homeless and citizens returning from incarceration). The nonprofit took a bold step by purchasing a for profit staffing firm with annual revenues of about $20 million!

One year after the purchase, First Step staffing was using the combined infrastructure to have a much larger impact on the community. They provided employment to over 2,100 of Atlanta’s homeless, and 86% of those working over 180 days were able to rent their own residence!

This unique conversation explored:

Identifying the company to purchase

Being willing to walk away from the wrong deal

Due diligence necessary to purchase a for profit company

Financing the purchase of a for profit company

Merging two entities with very different organizational cultures

Identifying metrics to track

Understanding the purchase’s impact on charitable contributions (they went up, listen to find out why)

Dolph is recognized as a high performance leader in the nonprofit sector who served as a nonprofit CEO for a dozen years and a fundraiser for an additional ten years. Author of the book Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards, Goldenburg also founded a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta.His multi-state consulting practice provides interim executive transition, strategic planning, and organizational development services. The Goldenburg Group's clients have annual operating budgets ranging from $25,000 to over $25 million deployed in the areas of housing, education, civil rights, arts and culture, workforce development, health services, and community-based services.